Gala Bamboo Taber Testing

Gala Bamboo Taber Testing

What is finish?
The type and quality of finish applied determines how much resistance a floor has to scratching, fading, or color loss. Finish can be applied at the factory (pre-finished flooring) or on the jobsite as part of your installation (unfinished flooring).What kind of Finish does Gala Bamboo use?
At Gala Manufacturing, all of our bamboo floors are pre-finished using a UV-Cured process and a minimum of two layers of Aluminum Oxide. This type of finish process provides some of the highest quality pre-finished bamboo flooring available in the market today. Instead of just telling you how great our finish is, we thought we’d go ahead and run a taber test on it and let you decide for yourself.What is a Taber Test?
The taber test is used to measure the wear rating of the finish that is used on a floor. This testing can be performed both on factory applied pre-finished flooring as well as unfinished flooring which has the finish applied after installation. This test is used to determine how much wear-life a finish applied to a floor has before it is completely worn through. The test is performed using a taber machine with two metal wheels that spin. The metal wheels are weighed down and they spin on the top layer of the flooring until the finish is completely worn throughout. The test measures the first wear-through point (called initial wear-through) as well as the final wear-through point (point where every point along the circle of the taber wheel is completely worn through) and comes up with an average wear-through rating.What does that mean to me?
There are a lot of different tests that can tell you a lot of different things about a product. We took our bamboo floors and put them head to head against a reputable, high-end brand of bamboo flooring within the United States. We ran the same exact test, with the same exact lab, on the same exact equipment and compared ourselves side by side with this manufacturer. Here’s how we stacked up:

Product

Gala Manufacturing

Competitor #1

Premier Solid Strand

46,500

27,500

Nobility/San Juan Hand Sculpted Strand

33,000

27,500

Longview Click Engineered Strand

32,000

N/A

Stone Creek Click HDF Strand w/Pad

35,500

N/A

New Beginnings Solid Strand Woven Bamboo

36,500

27,500

Foundations Click HDF Bamoo Vertical Grain

27,000

N/A

Gala Bamboo Avg Taber Wear Resistance

27,850

27,500

We are pleased to say we had a number of items that blew away the competition. In fact, the independent testing lab we used in the US even stated that our finish was “gnarly” and took much longer to perform the tests than it normally would because of the extreme wear resistance of the finish used in our bamboo flooring. You’ll notice the manufacturer we compared against didn’t even have some items comparable to what we tested. We manufacture such a wide range of flooring products there were no comparisons available, but you can compare against our other items and see our finish performs.What about your entry-level products? Do those test as high?
The manufacturer we compared to is one of the most expensive retail bamboo flooring products available. If we were always the most expensive, we could exceed their quality of finish across the board. However, we know how important it is to have a wide range of products from high-end to value-based. Our bamboo line is designed to have high value, high quality, and great price-points in every bamboo floor we manufacture. In order to offer lower price points every manufacturer has to find ways to value engineer and we’re no different. We’re not afraid to say this because we know we are still producing the highest quality bamboo flooring available at a great price point and not everyone can afford the most expensive floor they can find.With Gala Manufacturing Bamboo, you’re always getting the highest quality finish available at the most competitive price points around.